1hbh slice for shoulder height balls

I can hit a pretty good slice when the ball is below shoulder height. But when the ball is above shoulder, I have trouble generating pace and the ball becomes a floater and lands short. What is the proper way to slice a high ball that has a good amonnt of topspin? The recent thread on Federer's slice where it describes you hit down and across, I can do that on low balls. I can't visualize how you slice down and across on a shoulder height ball. Tips?

Would you also say that taking it either on the rise or at its max peak is the ideal time to hit it?

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Depends what kind of shot you want to hit. If you want a really low skidding ball, take it on the rise. If you want to float it or curve it, it's much better to take it at the top as long as it's not too high.

If it gets too high above the shoulder all you're going to be able to do is float it deep.

Would you also say that taking it either on the rise or at its max peak is the ideal time to hit it?

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the ideal height would be near shoulder level. so if the ball is bouncing even higher than that you wanna step in and take it on the rise. if the max peak is around shoulder height you can take it there too.

Some good (ie., testable) comments so far, imo. I'm not qualified to offer any advice, but here's some vids (they're all really short, like a few seconds each, so go ahead and check them out).

This one's hit at about chest height. I guess I could have taken the ball a little earlier (a bit higher). Anyway I think the principle is basically the same as for undercutting higher balls.http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zMQQSdS3y2M

This one's over my head at contact. I followed it in because I figured I had enough time to get into a fairly good net position. Probably a bad idea on such a no-pace ball, but this is 3.0 tennis where nobody has good passing shots and any kind of pressure usually leads to errors, and anyway I should have been able to hit a successful volley off what came back.http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jXC4Qn8e8yM

Have the racket head *above* the ball before contact, then, as you slice down and forward, *don't* let the racket face "close" - which, if you opened it a good bit for power on the back swing, can get to be kind of interesting. Might even think of it as making contact "above the ball's equator". This keeps it from "floating" higher than you want.

Much like a high backhand volley, you may have to either just "stop" the racket face at impact, or really do some fancy racket face manipulation after contact in order to keep the face from closing. If you *do* let the face close, then it was probably closing too much at impact, and it probably went into the bottom of the net.

Have the racket head *above* the ball before contact, then, as you slice down and forward, *don't* let the racket face "close" - which, if you opened it a good bit for power on the back swing, can get to be kind of interesting. Might even think of it as making contact "above the ball's equator". This keeps it from "floating" higher than you want.

Much like a high backhand volley, you may have to either just "stop" the racket face at impact, or really do some fancy racket face manipulation after contact in order to keep the face from closing. If you *do* let the face close, then it was probably closing too much at impact, and it probably went into the bottom of the net.

Since you're SLICING, the ball cannot travel as fast as a topspin or flat shot.
So you aim lower, maybe 2' above the net cord, the ball lands deep past NML, skids off to one side, bouncing low, and hopefully gives your topspin grooved opponent some problems with setup and prep.
And since you are slicing, you have more control of the height over net, so you can adjust as needed if the opponent comes into net position.
Load your front foot, lean towards your target lowering your front shoulder, slice FIRMLY thru the stroke, with weight behind it.
I like a conti grip with a slight twist towards eFOREhand, taken well late, almost in line with my front shoulder.

Just keep practicing it outside of match play. Have someone feed you higher than average balls to your BH and keep at it. Or, practice with a ball machine. or, practice against a wall. You'll figure it out, you just need a lot of time doing it.

How do you think guys like Federer are so good at so many awesome shots (aside from just a ground stroke)? They practice and isolate those shots for hours on end.

In a given match, how many of those slice BH's are you going to encounter? How many of them are above your shoulder? Not a whole lot, i don't think. Until you've done it 500/1000/10,000 times, then both your mind and body aren't used to it, aren't used to anticipating that shot and then going for it.

Errr... That is kind of a poor example. That is a structural engineering thing if I understand the video correctly, so what they call "pressure" I would say is compression. The fact that they are using a force diagram with no mention of area to ascertain the difference furthers my point that what they are describing is compression more than pressure.

Pressure can have arrows of a force diagram face towards or away from each other depending on the pressure differential.

Example: I take a normal drinking straw, and plug each end with a spitball; I then poke a hole in one wall in the exact center of the straw. If I suck the air out of the straw through the hole in the middle then both spitballs will come towards the middle of the straw because the atmospheric pressure outside is greater than the pressure inside the tube of the straw which I have drawn the air out of. If I then blow into that same hole, the spitballs will reverse course, and blast out the ends of the straw because by blowing into the straw, the pressure within has risen to greater than atmospheric pressure.

Both pressure related.

The thing to remember is that tension is the force exerted by something which is trying to return to its normal state after being stretched.

I can hit a pretty good slice when the ball is below shoulder height. But when the ball is above shoulder, I have trouble generating pace and the ball becomes a floater and lands short. What is the proper way to slice a high ball that has a good amonnt of topspin? The recent thread on Federer's slice where it describes you hit down and across, I can do that on low balls. I can't visualize how you slice down and across on a shoulder height ball. Tips?

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I don't think top spin comes into it really when your talking about playing the type of shot your talking about. If u play with a SHBH you'll find it easier to chop into the ball at shoulder height, so your actually putting a lot of backspin on the ball. Control the racket head with your left arm assuming your right handed and hold the racket head at a slight angle and chop down into the ball. Depending upon how hard you strike the ball you can control the depth of your shot. Trying to play a high, shoulder height topspin backhand is just a nightmare if you play with a SHBH. Watch federer on YouTube or tv and you'll see what I mean.

Errr... That is kind of a poor example. That is a structural engineering thing if I understand the video correctly, so what they call "pressure" I would say is compression. The fact that they are using a force diagram with no mention of area to ascertain the difference furthers my point that what they are describing is compression more than pressure.

Pressure can have arrows of a force diagram face towards or away from each other depending on the pressure differential.

Example: I take a normal drinking straw, and plug each end with a spitball; I then poke a hole in one wall in the exact center of the straw. If I suck the air out of the straw through the hole in the middle then both spitballs will come towards the middle of the straw because the atmospheric pressure outside is greater than the pressure inside the tube of the straw which I have drawn the air out of. If I then blow into that same hole, the spitballs will reverse course, and blast out the ends of the straw because by blowing into the straw, the pressure within has risen to greater than atmospheric pressure.

Both pressure related.

The thing to remember is that tension is the force exerted by something which is trying to return to its normal state after being stretched.